


Made to Last

by stmangos



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Anxiety, Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Bisexual Zuko (Avatar), Homophobia, Internalized Biphobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Queer Themes, Rated for Violence and Swearing, Rest of the Gaang Ursa and Iroh show up briefly/are mentioned, happy new year everyone!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 19:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17249909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stmangos/pseuds/stmangos
Summary: Sokka’s been in the Fire Nation for a while now, so he totally knows the ropes-- except, that is, as regards his brain rebelling against him, a pro-Ozai group orchestrating attacks, and the ever-present mental rigmarole of how he and Zuko will get out of this damn closet.





	Made to Last

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Every Eventuality, but a more direct sequel to A Problematic Peace. (In keeping with Every Eventuality Katara’s pronouns change by section.)

Curtains, check. Under the bed, check. Closet, check. Weird-looking chair Zuko claims has been in their family for three hundred years, check. All of that double-checked, check. Wait. Did he check behind the curtains?

Yes.

_No, you didn’t,_ says a voice in his head. 

_Yes, I did,_ he tells it. 

_No, you didn’t, and there is definitely certainly one hundred percent sure somebody behind that curtain who’s waiting to jump out and stab both of you as soon as you turn your back_ \-- the voice insists. 

He stands immobile for a moment before giving in and rechecking behind the curtains. There are way too many places in this room that could conceal a possibly dangerous human being. Way too many places in any room, for that matter, he’s starting to think. His eyelids are drooping, but it’s as if a metal band is wrapped around his ribs, keeping him limply and cruelly upright, because he could no more simply lie down and go to sleep than he could firebend. 

Every single shadow is a potential threat. And don’t even get him started on the secret passageways he uses to come in and out at least once a day. They open into the passage. How is he supposed to block that off?

_You know you’re probably losing it,_ he tells himself tiredly. _Paranoid._

“Sokka,” says Zuko.

“Mm?” says Sokka.

“You should come to bed.”

“Right, right,” Sokka mutters, going to check the lock on the door for the seventh time. “Absolutely, let me just…” He stares at it accusingly. It is obviously closed, but somehow he’s having some trouble getting his brain to believe it.

“You should sleep,” says Zuko firmly, tugging him gently by the elbow. 

“I _can’t,”_ Sokka huffs. “I keep thinking about everything that could go wrong, everyone who might be out to get us-- and you know what’s funny? Half of me doesn’t even think there’s a reason, half of me wants to just be dead to the world for a few hours-- but that half of me still can’t make the other half of me shut up.”

So, so tired. His skin is numb with it. The rustling of his own clothes is terrifying. He can feel the dark eyebags becoming a permanent part of him, as of a clay ceramic hardening before the sculptor has finished. The days when he could sleep like the dead are gone-- that’s another thing he and Zuko have in common, now. 

His brain is goddamn _broken._

“I’m not.” He swallows, his throat dry. This whole thing is pathetically dumb, and he gestures accordingly halfheartedly, not even sure what, exactly, he is trying to convey. “Well, you know. Curtains. Corners. Not a fan of those.”

“Yeah, I know,” Zuko agrees easily.

Most of the extra furniture has been moved out of the room. He side-eyes the lone chair still standing in the corner and then slumps against the wall. He allows his eyes to slip shut for a moment, only to snap them open again at the clamor of Zuko dragging the aforementioned chair out into the outer chamber with no further prompting. 

“Fuck that chair,” says Zuko, almost thoughtfully. Sokka snorts out a laugh.

Zuko looks up at him expectantly. “What else?” And it may be the lateness of the hour, but Sokka finds himself utterly struck by him in that moment: hair ruffled, the muted red of his sleep clothes a comforting contrast against the rough brown of the wooden walls.

“Uh…” He looks so soft, and warm, and Sokka wants to curl up against him and disappear. “Locks. I know, I already did them, but I just...”

Zuko offers a curt nod before setting busily to checking them-- windows, door-- moving back and forth between them twice in a businesslike fashion. 

“Zuko.”

“Yeah.” Zuko’s folding back the covers on the bed with a slight frown, as if they’ve done him wrong but he’s not sure how. 

He trudges over to the bed, flopping onto it face first. “Thanks.” He rolls over a little to squint up at him. It calms him a little to see his small but genuine smile, reflected back through the vague blur of his own yawn tears. He collapses back onto the bed, allowing his eyes to close at last.  
A couple of soft thumps signify Zuko kicking his slippers off, and he swings his legs up into the bed. He touches Sokka’s shoulder gently. “You have to get under the covers.”

Grudgingly, Sokka obliges, and sees the bright force outside his eyelids vanish as Zuko turns out the light. 

 

_Dear Katara,_

He stares at the empty page. A drop of ink drips onto the paper from his brush frozen in midair, and he resists the urge to smear it. 

_I have something I--_

No. Not right. 

He crumples the paper and tosses it towards the wastebasket, where it lands with a _thwack._

Does Katara already know, even? Maybe. Sometimes he’s thought that Katara, annoyingly emotionally perceptive at times, suspects… And what is he afraid of, anyway? He knows full well Katara wouldn’t reject him.

He pulls out a fresh sheet of paper. 

_Dear…_

Aang? Toph? Suki? 

Suki probably knows. He knows about her. 

He sighs, putting down the brush and scrubbing his face with his hands. He doesn’t have all the information, on who knows what, and what he should therefore say. 

A knock sounds on the door, and he looks up. “Come in.”

The door opens, and Yuna, part of the diplomatic team from the north, leans against his door frame. “We just got another threat.”

“Oh, great. What kind?” Sokka swivels in his chair to face the door, putting the paper behind him. 

“More threatening letters. I guess the Disciples of Ozai didn’t want to bother getting past the guards to gift us some more graffiti.” She crosses her arms with a slight frown. “I’m actually surprised you’re awake. Thought I’d be waking you up.” Her eyes flicker curiously to the desk behind Sokka.

Sokka takes a deep, steadying breath. “Oh, you know. Just catching up on some letters to my family.” He makes a mental note to properly take care of the crumpled mess of papers before he leaves the Embassy. He doesn’t think she would snoop, but you can’t be too careful.  
She nods once, her expression unreadable. “Anyway, just wanted to warn you. I know it’s old hat by now.”

“Thanks,” he says, and she exits, closing the door behind her. After waiting a few moments to make sure she’s gone, he looks back at his one-word letter. He might not even need to get rid of this stuff. Most of his attempts don’t say anything incriminating because he couldn’t seem to get the words for it right. 

But no. Burning it is.

 

“Okay, so… there’s nothing else you can tell me about the city?” says the aide skeptically.

“No, nothing.” He racks his brains, but frankly, history was never his foremost concern when he was younger, and his dad has been understandably reluctant to let the precious few hard materials that they have of the Southern Water Tribe’s past that weren’t destroyed in the war be transported to the Fire Nation for study by scholars attempting to reform the education system. “Other people from my village who are older than me might know more. I can contact them.”

“Yes, I think that would be helpful,” she mutters, flipping through her neat stack of notes. “Well, we can add these bits to the information we have. But the most important parts, about the, uh, major inaccuracies about the Water Tribe-- those we’ll probably just edit as needed. No need to pull the new curriculum.”

“Yeah, definitely not.” He’s not sure if it’s more depressing or infuriating that a substantial portion of the Fire Nation grew up being told, of course, that the Water Tribe had attacked first.

“I only wish we had more.” 

“Well, a fair amount of stuff got destroyed in the war.”

“Yes, I… I know.” She dips her head in embarrassment. “Well, I will get this to the editing room. It’ll be added to the textbooks. If you think of anything else, please do contact us. We want to make sure to get this right.”

She exits the room, but he remains in his seat. He’d never thought much of history before besides the obvious: history started this war, and so now it was something they had to deal with. Thoughts in the Southern Water Tribe had generally been on the future: the next battle, the next attack, how the pieces of this game might shift and change. But perhaps there are places he hasn’t looked, here.

 

An electric current zips through him when the door watch, Tsui Ling, Zuko’s head guard, stops him gently with a hand on his shoulder, and he feels for his sword automatically even as he knows that it isn’t there. Would look too weird to carry around.

“Sorry,” she says apologetically. “He’s kind of in a meeting right now. Sounds like it’s getting kind of heated.”

This doesn’t surprise Sokka in the slightest, which he thinks about to distract himself from his nonsensically galloping heart. “With who?”

“Junior advisor. Soongyu.” She grimaces a little. “Don’t know if you wanna go in there.”

“I think I’ll take my chances.”

She shrugs. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She steps aside, and he opens the door to find a standing Zuko pointing accusingly at Soongyu, who looks close to tearing her hair out.

“You can’t put this off forever! Especially with the Disciples of the Ozai attacking people left and right, you _need_ a stronger position on the throne!”

“Oh, and getting hitched is going to _magically solve_ all my problems?”

Both of their chairs, abandoned, are pushed out from the table and askew. “Not _all_ of them, no! But it is _imperative_ that you give an impression of strength, of continuity-- that there is someone to continue after you are gone! Hung Wah says--”

“Well, I suggest we focus on actually solving the problems we have, including the Disciples, instead of making plans as if I’m already dead!”

“This isn’t about you!” says Soongyu more wrathfully than ever, and jabs a finger in Zuko’s direction so that they mirror each other. “The war has to remain over, and if you die, the throne will fall to your sister! You know that! Everyone knows that!”

Sokka clears his throat, and they both look over at him, wild-eyed-- but Zuko’s shoulders lower while Soongyu throws her hands up and says irritably, “Oh, great. Just what I needed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” says Sokka, crossing his arms.

“Oh, nothing, Ambassador. Just that this discussion was going badly enough without you here to influence the Firelord.”

“He can influence me as much as he damn well pleases!” shouts Zuko. 

“Well, in that case,” snaps Soongyu, “I guess I’ll just leave, then.” She pushes in her chair with a forceful movement and storms past Sokka to the door as they watch. 

She exits, and Sokka looks at Zuko, who’s glaring at the closed door. Sokka knows that they are both uncomfortably aware of the delicacy of the situation: the two of them, mutually aware of their secrets as they are, arguing for the postponement of something that very well might imperil those very secrets. 

“I…” Zuko trails off. He finally looks back at Sokka. “That was…”

“Last week’s argument was louder,” says Sokka. “But I think maybe you really got through to each other this time.” 

Zuko makes a face.

Sokka realizes he’s chewing his lip and makes an effort to stop himself. _No one knows, no one knows._ “She sounds determined.”

“She is determined. The whole council is by now. It’s kind of… the way things have been for centuries.”

Sokka takes a slow, deep breath. They both knew this was coming.

The dim light in the windowless room begs him to investigate every corner, every shadow.

_Shut up,_ he tells himself.

_Danger,_ a part of him replies. _Somebody wants to kill you._

A light knock comes on the open door. 

“If you came to tell me to get married and have children,” begins Zuko somewhat shrilly, “I’m not having that discussion right now.”

“No, no,” says his senior advisor, Hung Wah, with a small laugh. “I didn’t.” 

“Good.” Zuko appears to make a conscious effort to lower his shoulders. “Soongyu and the whole council seem to think world peace depends on it.”

“Well, I think that’s a little overdramatic,” says Hung Wah, walking forward to rest her long-fingered hands, bejeweled with rings, on the back of a chair. “I’m sure she only wants what’s best for you, and for our country.” She looks at Sokka. “Good morning, Ambassador. How is the uncovering of the Water Tribe’s rightful history going?”

“Pretty well, thanks.”

“I’m glad to hear it. We all must remember where we come from. It’s so important to keep a clear image of the past. Unfortunately, not everything is going so well.” Her eyes flick back to Zuko, a regretful look on her face.

Zuko adopts a long-suffering look, as if he knows full well where this is going. Sokka can guess.

“About this whole… elections idea,” she begins. “I just don’t know that it’s feasible. I know you only mean the lower level district officials, but really, it’s just so unnecessary! I don’t know that the people of the Fire Nation are really ready for something like this.”

“It’s just a test. To see if we can ensure that leaders won’t be able to make decisions on a whim. So that next time, maybe there won’t _be_ a war.”

“We’ll see,” says Hung Wah, looking skeptical. “In any case, I also wanted to discuss your… orphanage idea. You want to set up an orphanage.”

“Yes.”

“For children who are turned out due to… deviance?”

“So you don’t like orphanages,” Sokka can’t resist butting in to say overly politely.

She frowns at him. “It’s not the orphanage aspect that worries me.” She looks back at Zuko. “The Court, not to mention the Council, are still a little thrown by that last, er, stunt you pulled. Last year, with the, ah, ‘non-discrimination edict,’ as you called it?”

“It wasn’t a _stunt,”_ says Zuko hotly. “We needed to make changes.”

She looks doubtful. “We need stability, Firelord. I’d like to see the Fire Nation survive to view the war as ancient history, as merely a terrible mistake. We can’t move past it if we don’t make it through this uncertain time.”

“So you don’t think I should change things for the better?”

“Firelord,” she says with a sigh, “that’s just it. I think we are doing just fine as it is.”

 

“Why are they so opposed to everything I’m doing?” Zuko turns the key in the lock with a loud click. “Every time I make a move, there they are to say how much they disagree with it.”

“You know why,” says Sokka. 

They both fall silent, but the massive door groans as they pull it open, revealing a yawning darkness a few steps past the threshold. 

“This is the royal storeroom,” says Zuko. “Firelords and their families have been throwing their stuff in here for centuries. If there’s anything taken from the Water Tribe, it’s probably in here.”

“No windows,” Sokka observes. 

Zuko lights the lantern he’s holding and closes the door with a dull thud behind them. “Yeah. Wouldn’t preserve as well.”

The room is filled with stacks so high they tower over their heads, mostly made of furniture and shelving with boxes and stacks of papers piled on top. Dusty mannequins with elaborate clothing cluster around a spindly-legged end table. A basket overflowing with jewelled combs that glint in the light from the fire rests precariously atop a curved chest that a couple people could probably fit into. A banner on the wall to their left displays what looks like an old-fashioned version of the Fire Nation’s symbol, and to their right is a rack of weapons including several swords and axes. The stacks form a narrow walkway that continues ahead of them for twenty feet, then turns to the right and ceases to be visible. 

Sokka grabs onto the nearest object, a mannequin wearing an elaborate suit of armor, in order to examine one of the yellowed tags that hang off of every object. It’s the date, roughly fifteen years before the present. 

“It’s probably farther back,” says Zuko. 

Sokka frowns at the narrow walkway suspiciously. This would be a wonderful place to ambush someone. Except for the fact that that’s ridiculous, this room was locked until they got here, and the thick coat of dust on the floor reveals that no one has been here in years. 

“Let’s go,” he says and marches into the stacks, feeling jittery. 

They wander along the path as the stacks get taller and taller. The lanterns cast strange shadows on the furniture, and Sokka’s relieved to feel their shoulders brush comfortingly as the paths narrow. The dim light begs him to canvas every corner, every crevice. 

They pause to check the dates on the tags again. Roughly sixty-five years ago, and the same in the short corridors off to either side. The path is sloping downward, and he suspects they’re underground by now. 

“This is about the right time period,” Sokka says.

“The time period of what?”

“The last major invasion,” Sokka mutters, looking around. He sets his lantern down. “Guess we gotta start somewhere.” He drags a trunk that’s mercifully unburdened out from its nook. When he lets go of it, his fingers come away covered in a thick coat of dust, and when he opens the lid a cloud of dust rises that has them both coughing for a few seconds. The interior is filled with clothing, which he digs through before closing the lid and pushing it off to the side. One down, about a million to go. 

“So what exactly are we looking for?”

Sokka shrugs as he investigates a chest of drawers farther down the aisle. “I’m not sure exactly. But there was a lot of stuff, books and records and other things, that were unaccounted for after the attacks. They might have been burned, but maybe… Were people into…” He grimaces, and he’s unable to keep the resentment out of his voice. “Taking trophies, or anything like that?”

“They might have been,” Zuko admits quietly. Sokka hears him open up another trunk whose lid creaks loudly. 

They search that way for some time, finding nothing of note, until Sokka’s hand buried in a box brushes against paper, encased by what feels like a harder cover. Hoping, but not feeling particularly optimistic that it’s anything to get excited about, he carefully lifts it out.  
“Zuko, I think I found something!”

It’s an ancient, heavy-covered book, nestled among a half dozen of its fellows, all Water Tribe. Underneath it are a stash of parkas and richly embroidered capes of a style he has never seen worn before. The fragile piece of paper pinned to the top of the book reads _Some of Chief Kann’s family heirlooms-- taken my first campaign in the south._ He pries it off immediately and crumples it before tossing it away.

Dick.

They continue searching, but no other boxes in that section appear to contain Water Tribe materials. They end up wandering, the dust increasing as the labels get older and older. They’ve long since passed the point at which the war began, and highly odd things are beginning to show up, including a rack of gold-sequined capes and a massive taxidermied lion-hippo. Say what you will about Zuko’s family’s hoarding tendencies, but let it never be said that what they chose to hoard wasn’t interesting. 

They flop down not far from the lion-hippo and sit there quietly side by side, surrounded by the objects, watching as dust motes swirl in the lantern light. The room is so quiet, and so still, and the darkness outside their circle of lamplight so complete, that he feels almost as if they’re being entombed in here with the rest of these objects. 

Absently he pulls out a thick stack of what looks like letters nestled into a protective box on the shelf next to him. He pulls out the first one, scanning it-- something about _miss you dearly,_ blah blah blah _your father is being ridiculous_ \--- something something _the Southern lights--_

Wait, wait, _wait_ \-- his hand freezes on its way to set the letter aside, ready to rifle carelessly through the rest of the stack, and instead he brings it back close up to his face, searching curiously. 

The section is _The Southern lights will be happening next time you visit. Don’t worry, we can see them from the comfort of my bedroom window. We won’t even have to get out of bed._

He reads the rest of the letter-- more of the same, the writer continuing to mention their plans for the person’s visit and how much they miss them-- and reaches the end of the letter with eagerness. 

_All my love, Aguna_

His eyes flick back up to the top. _Dear Tuzoto,_

“Zuko,” he says. 

Not wanting to take his eyes off the letter, he feels rather than sees Zuko shuffle up behind him to look over his shoulder. Sokka points out the section about the Southern lights. “Someone from the Southern Water Tribe was writing to someone in your family. Do you know who Tuzoto is?”

“No,” says Zuko. His hair is tickling Sokka’s shoulder as he angles his head to read the letter. “Although if they were close to someone in the Southern Water Tribe, Sozin might have just tried to write them out of history.” 

Sokka hands him the letter and pulls out the next one. He flips through the rest of the stack-- they are all like this. A veritable library of love letters. 

He cannot picture any of his and Zuko’s letters surviving this way. 

He sighs, and realizing how tense he is, tries to relax by letting his head thump back against the shelving, probably getting dust in his hair.

He wonders what’s going on at home. They’ll sure be glad to get all of this back. 

 

“You got anything on the Water Tribe?” he says in a bookstore. He’s feeling oddly homesick.  
The types of responses he gets vary: chief among them are “We only have books on the Fire Nation here,” with an honorable mention to the guy whom Sokka had nearly punched after saying cheerfully “I didn’t know the Water Tribe knew how to read!”

Anyway. This is how he has ended up here, in a tiny bookshop in the heart of the city, miles away from where he started and thankfully also miles away from the libraries he has canvassed today. He honestly only came in here because it was shaded from the sun, brutal in its late summer glory, but the place has a pleasing air to it. Very old timey and quaint. 

He doesn’t bother asking the old woman behind the counter if she has any books about the Water Tribe-- he’s had enough of disappointment today-- but instead gives her a polite smile and wanders through the crowded shelves, stocked nearly to the ceiling with a large assortment of dusty books and scrolls. At the top of the shelves, the books’ covers are grey with dust, and when he puts his hand on a shelf it creaks alarmingly. 

Out of sight of the woman behind the counter, he leans against one of these shelves and slumps down to the ground with a sigh, intending to rest a minute. The shop is lit dimly, especially in comparison to the blinding sun. 

After a few seconds, he opens his eyes, watching first the people passing by in the blazing street outside through the small front window and then turning his gaze to the books right next to his face. 

_Proper Care and Feeding of Komodo Rhinos,_ a battered copy of _Love Amongst the Dragons,_ and _The Royal Family for Idiots._

Oh, boy. 

He tugs it out, coughing in the little cloud of dust it loosens, and cracks it open gingerly. He has to squint at the faded words.

_Now, if you’ll remember back to Princess Atira’s pet dragon and the Palatial Destruction of ‘69, it had already become somewhat customary to keep a small contingent of armed guards around the entrances to the palace’s stables. But intra-family warfare would take a backseat for the next few years as the nobility grappled with new challenges: a year of poor crops, the commoner resentment that resulted, and the rash of ‘cabbagings’ (as they came to be called) that therefore ensued._

Yeah, he’s buying this. 

 

“You’re never going to guess what I found while shopping today.” He rummages in his bag. As Zuko watches half apprehensively, he produces the book. Sure, it’s appallingly dusty; sure, three-fourths of the pages are falling out; sure, he wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a hundred years out of date, but that’s no reason to-- is that mold? 

Zuko pokes at it suspiciously. “It looks like something you’d find in the trash.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” says Sokka loftily. “Especially because you might be in it.”

He turns the thing over, showing Zuko the cover.

“Listen to this,” says Sokka cheerfully, having dragged the book into bed with them. “Did you know that one of your ancestors had eight husbands, and they were all chosen so that each one’s beard was exactly one inch longer than the last, and if the beard length changed by more than a fourth of an inch he was executed by immolation?”

“Please go to sleep,” says Zuko. “Where did you _get_ this?” 

“Used bookstore. It was an impulse buy.” 

“Your impulse buy is getting dust all over the bed.”

“Show some respect, Zuko. It’s an _antique.”_

Zuko gropes for the lamp to turn out the light, but Sokka catches his hand and presses an obnoxiously loud kiss to his knuckles instead.

Zuko gives him an utterly outraged look. “That stuff’s probably all made up.”

“Oh, shush. This looks old. Doesn’t seem like anyone after Sozin’s in here. So at least he probably didn’t get his creepy little hands on it.”

Zuko rests his head against Sokka’s hip and sighs. “Maybe.”

Sokka turns another page, scanning it curiously, only to stop as his eyes catch on a bit in the middle. He knows that name. 

_...after which Princess Tuzoto departed for the Southern Water Tribe with her lover, Councilwoman Aguna, and was passed over in the succession in favor of her cousin…_

“Zuko, look at this.”

“No more beards.”

“No, _look.”_

Sokka watches Zuko’s face change from skepticism, to surprise, to bewilderment. “Oh,” he says.

“Still think it’s made up?”

Zuko blinks up at the ceiling. A few seconds go by before he says, “I hope not.”

“You never heard about this stuff, did you?”

“Never from my family or schooling, no. You didn’t either.”

“Nope.” Sokka rests his fingers gently over the faded ink of the sentence in question. The paper feels so delicate, so thin. “No, I didn’t.”

 

The next morning brings an invitation to talk from Hung Wah. Sokka finds her leaning against the railing on the upper story, watching the training yard. There is a firebending match going on. 

“You wanted to see me?” says Sokka warily. He pauses a few steps away, crossing his arms. A strong scent of ginger surrounds her, and if he gets any closer he might actually faint. Or maybe that’s just the anxiety. 

_This isn’t about that,_ he tells himself. _No one knows. It’s not. Why are you so stiff? Relax, damn it._

Hung Wah is turning one of her rings on her fingers. She catches his glance and smiles thinly. “Did you know jewelry is one of the few things that can survive a house fire? Underneath all the ash, you’ll find your gold and silver just as they were.” She looks back at the yard below. “My parents were jewelers. Each thing my family made, they made to last.” Her smile fades. “I’d like to see the Fire Nation do the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Fire Nation has been peaceful for most of its history. This war has been an… unfortunate series of events. Like I said, I’d like to see the Fire Nation survive to move past it. But the Fire Nation has deep roots, Ambassador. We have long traditions, and a very old and dignified way of life… and I worry that the Firelord wants to tear them all down.” She glances back at the flames rushing in and out of existence in the courtyard below before looking back at him. “These social reforms, the blurring of barriers between the nobility and the common people-- these are all central components of our moral authority and stability. The Fire Nation lost the war, but we don’t need to lose ourselves along with it.”

“Uh-huh,” says Sokka dubiously. “And what do you want me to do about it?” 

“I know you have the Firelord’s ear,” she says with a sigh. “I know I was brought on for my experience with the Court, but it is my job to guide him and the nation. I only hope for him to see reason.”

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” says Sokka, his annoyance mounting, “Z-- The Firelord is trying to make people’s lives better, and you think this is bad.”

“I think his impatience to charge ahead will ultimately lead us to ruin,” she says disapprovingly.

“Look, even if I could convince him-- and I couldn’t-- I wouldn’t. I think it is time for some change.”

Her face is mask-like. “I see.” 

He shrugs. “Sorry.” He’s not.

 

He returns to conversations with aides to the Minister of Education, listing, describing all that he knows, racking his brains for things he never imagined he would have to explain in detail to another person. It simply is, the Southern Water Tribe. He doesn’t know how to explain it.

They turn to marriage customs, and as he uncomfortably describes betrothal necklaces, the aide’s brush energetically scribbling wet black lines across the page, he can’t help thinking: _Am I telling the whole truth? Way back in whatever-year-that-was, were some of us were on the gayer side and no one in the Southern Water Tribe cared?_

He feels a tug in his heart. He’s been away for a long time. 

 

Neither of them is asleep. They both know this, but they are lying quietly together in the dark. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend. It’s too hot. Sokka wants to throw the covers off, but can’t let go of some childish impulse to stay under them, some residual belief that he’s safer underneath. And he knows that’s not true, he knows-- but somehow his mind has been rebelling against him lately. 

In an effort to dispel the irrational fears banging into the corners of his mind, he tries to focus on the sound of Zuko’s breathing, the rise and fall of his chest under Sokka’s arm. This helps. Then some part of the walls or the ceiling of the centuries-old palace completely understandably creaks a little, and he feels paralyzed again. Something is _wrong_ with him.

“You’re really stiff,” Zuko whispers abruptly, breaking the silence. “You okay?”

Sokka takes a deep breath. He’s a little relieved to have the distraction, even though his mind is screaming at him that this lack of focus is going to get them both killed. How much should he say? “I’m just…” Nervous? Afraid? Stressed?

This is the one situation where “I’m just tired” won’t work as an excuse.

“Are you worried about our… thing?”

Despite himself, Sokka smiles incredulously into Zuko’s shirt. “Our ‘thing’?” 

“You know,” says Zuko seriously, undeterred. “How we’re going to keep this secret. How long we’ll be able to do it, and how bad the fallout will be when we finally fail.” He sounds determined, and Sokka realizes that he fully _expects_ them to fail. That he’s ready for it.

“It’s not like we’re completely useless at this. We’ve been doing all right so far. And you don’t know that it’ll be _that_ terrible if we get found out.” A sudden fear grips him that everyone knows already, and they are all just biding their time until the right moment to yank the rug out from under their feet. “Look, you and I are the only people who know. Iroh has probably guessed, and Suki, and Katara, and maybe your mom. That’s less than you can count on one hand.”

A pause. “Ambassador Chu,” says Zuko, sounding a little sorry to add another to the list. 

“Well, that’s only five,” says Sokka, clinging to his last shred of sanity. They’ve got this, they’ve got this. He’s got this. “And none of them would tell anybody.”

After a few seconds of silence, Zuko says, “I know.” His tone sounds dark, and Sokka senses that he wants to say more, but is refraining out of a desire to keep them optimistic. Instead he simply squeezes him and tilts his head to rest his cheek against Sokka’s hair. 

“Zuko, you’re squeezing me kind of tight.”

“Sorry.”

“I guess I just don’t…” He didn’t realize how much he needed to talk. Maybe this is better than lying quietly in the dark after all. “My whole life I kept thinking this would go away if I just didn’t think about it. And it, uh, hasn’t. Not that I wish it had, but I just… don’t...” How does he articulate the mixture of happiness and utter self-hatred? How can he convey the knife’s edge he walks between hope and despair? “Do you get it?”

“I get it,” says Zuko firmly, and Sokka feels certain that he does. 

“So yeah, it’s-- it’s that. And the dread. I know it’s going to happen. I just don’t know when, or how it’ll go. And I feel like... Everyone’s out to get me. More than they actually are. Probably. And I know that’s not true. I know, but somehow I just can’t make myself _believe_ it.” He sighs, and tries in vain to make himself relax. 

There’s a few seconds of silence. 

“You wanna go somewhere?” says Zuko abruptly.

Sokka actually lifts his head to squint at his face in the dark. “Now? It’s like the middle of the night.”

“It’s not like we’re sleeping.”

“Where?”

 

The recent Disciples of Ozai attacks, among other things, have meant that they don’t sneak out of the palace much anymore. The rush of taking off, and the nerves, hit him as they hurry down alleyways, clutching hands. Almost no one is around, and those who are aren’t the type to care even if they could properly see them in the dark. There is no moon, and the stars glitter like little diamonds, seeming brighter with the adrenaline. 

As they weave into a part of the city with narrower streets, they start to see more lanterns and windows lit. Most of the people they run into are hooded as they are, moving quickly to their destinations and not wasting time in the street. As if they’re ashamed, or something. Sokka’s not sure how that makes him feel. But it’s not great, whatever it is.

After turning a last corner, Zuko stops. There is a tavern two buildings down from the corner. 

_The Jumping Dolphin Squid Tavern,_ says the faded sign. The door is red. The singular window is boarded up. But the glimpses of light and movement that come through the cracks seem friendly somehow.

The door creaks as it opens. Once inside, they are standing in a fairly large but crowded room. Half the furniture and the counter are worn, and the other half are polished and new, as if the owners have come into a bout of good fortune recently. The pai sho table in the back sits empty, its pieces neatly arranged in starting position. 

He accidentally bumps into someone with their back turned as they wend their way around one of the round tables, and they turn, shifting their position a little.

“So sorry,” she says cheerfully. But as she focuses on him, and then on Zuko, she frowns.

“Sorry,” mumbles Zuko, already turning.

“Hold on a second,” she says slowly. “Don’t I know you?”

Zuko meets Sokka’s eyes, and an ironclad conviction that they will bullshit their way out of this as if their lives depend on it passes between them. 

But her eyes light up. “Li. Li! I do know you! I recognized your voice!”

Zuko turns to squint at her with a little more concentration. “...Shizuki?”

“You do remember me!” she says, delighted. 

 

“So I guess you got some things figured out,” says Shizuki with a grin and an unsubtle nod at their entwined hands. It feels so incredibly strange to have someone see this that it makes Sokka want to yank his hand away.

“More or less,” says Zuko warily.

“How have you been?” says Tao Zu, her eyes roving thoughtfully over first Zuko’s face, then Sokka’s. “We thought we might see you around. But you never came back after that first time.”

“I was busy,” says Zuko, “with my job, and… family obligations.”

Sokka loves him, but hot _damn_ the guy cannot lie for shit.

“Speaking of jobs,” Tao Zu continues, setting her drink down after a sip, “remember last year, when you said you’d send anyone hiring our way? Well, right after we met you, we did get hired-- they practically came right up to our door. I always meant to ask-- was that you?”

Zuko hesitates, and Sokka can sense him floundering. If he says no, he risks being caught out in a lie. If he says yes, he risks revealing who he is. 

“Whoops,” says Sokka airily, knocking over his drink. In the ensuing rush for napkins he says, his eyes darting around the room and his mind seizing on the first topic of conversation he thinks of, “This place is really nice. I like those, uh… these chairs.” He grabs the empty one next to him. “What is this, velvet?”

Shizuki shrugs. “Maybe. The owner, Ting, came into some money recently. She was finally able to inherit part of what her mother left her in her will, and her family used to be _loaded.”_

“Really,” says Sokka absently, trying and discarding possible cover stories-- they should have thought of this earlier, but neither of them expected to run into any familiar faces-- “finally?”

“Well, you know.” Shizuki shrugs. “She couldn’t inherit, because she’s trans. But now that the Firelord changed the laws…”

“Right, of… of course.” It’s as if someone just threw a bucket of cold water over him, reminding him that this is transitory. They step outside this door, and it’s back to where they started.

“Not that she can even _get_ all of what she’s owed,” Tao Zu grumbles. “No matter what the law says, we all know almost no one at the level we interact with actually listens to it.”

A subdued pause settles over the group for a few seconds.

“Let’s talk about something more cheerful,” says Shizuki hurriedly. “We don’t have to think about that right now.”

Tao Zu sighs, but subsides easily, smiling at her. “Like what, your Firelord theory?”

“Either single or dual wielder. I’d bet money,” says Shizuki brightly. 

“Absolutely incorrigible,” says Tao Zu to Sokka and Zuko with a mock-exasperated sigh, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. 

“Uh, you mean like weapons?” says Sokka, frowning.

Tao Zu frowns back. “No, you know. Like-- which way he _swings.”_

Zuko chokes on his drink. 

“ _Oh,”_ says Sokka, sounding a little strangled even to his own ears, pounding Zuko on the back and fighting the urge to snigger nervously. “Okay.” 

“You just want to believe anyone vaguely sympathetic to you is gay,” says Tao Zu teasingly.

“Can’t blame a person for hoping,” Shizuki chirps, before turning her attention to Zuko in concern. “You okay, Li?”

Tears streaming down his cheeks, his face looking hot enough to enough to fry an egg on it, Zuko looks he’s about to have a heart attack. Somehow this sort of thing always seems to happen to them, doesn’t it?

Suddenly there is a loud _crack_ and a sound of shattering pottery just to Sokka’s right, and he jumps out of his chair, Zuko doing similar. But the crowd merely groans. One man in the corner stands and starts forward angrily as if to charge outside, but his table-mates drag him back into his seat. “They’re probably already gone,” Sokka hears one of them mutter in a resigned way. 

“What was that?” says Zuko.

Shizuki waves for them to sit back down, looking suddenly glum. “Someone threw another bottle of piss at the window. Good thing we haven’t replaced the glass yet.”

Sokka looks at the window. From his position, he can see rivulets of something dripping through the bottommost cracks. Tao Zu follows his gaze and sighs, and then groans. She pushes her chair back. “I’ll get a rag.”

“Aw, hon, you did it last time. Let someone else get it,” grumbles Shizuki.

“Let me,” says Sokka, watching a drip make its way down the wall. It’s horrifyingly hypnotic.

“Well, if you insist,” he hears Tao Zu say as if in a dream. 

There is another sound of a chair scraping. “Come on,” he hears Zuko mumble, feeling a light touch on his elbow. He didn’t even realize he’d been staring. He turns to find him looking somber and pale. “They probably have some behind the counter.” 

“You’re the real heroes tonight, guys,” calls Shizuki tiredly. There’s some scattered, half-hearted applause as they begin to wend their way through the tables to the back counter.

“Uh…” The space behind the counter appears to be empty. “Hello?” Sokka calls. 

“Ting’s probably in the back room,” Shizuki calls to them, pointing to a door behind the counter. 

They slip around the counter and enter. Inside, Sokka has the impression that he has walked into a very odd circus tent-- the walls are covered many times over with quilts of many colors and textures. Another quilt covers a crooked-legged table, made level by a rock stuffed under one leg, and the lap of the woman sitting in a crimson armchair behind it. Her hair is grey and wispy, and her face and hands are deeply lined.

She looks up at their entering. “Did they throw something at the window again?”

“Yeah,” says Sokka, not sure what else to say. 

She pushes the table away and rises with a sigh, surprisingly easily, and turns to a cabinet against the left wall. “We’ll run out of rags at this rate.” She rummages through what sounds like a jumble of different objects. Sokka is unsure if he should offer to help.

“How often do they do it?” says Zuko, speaking at last, unusually softly. 

“Oh, every few days or so. Whenever they get in the mood for a good queer-bashing, which for soldiers is all the time,” the woman grumbles. “You two are new around here, huh? My name’s Ting. I own this tavern.” She pulls out a gray lumpy mass and shakes it out. “This’ll do. I’ll have to bring out the mop later. And you are?”

“Wang. And Li,” says Sokka, at a loss still as he accepts the rag.

“I thought…” A funny look, of shame almost, crosses Zuko’s face, and Sokka looks at him inquiringly. “The new laws would’ve...”

“Oh, those.” Ting nods and props her hands on her hips. “Well, it’s a start. But, well, people’ve gotta follow ‘em for that to work.” 

Zuko looks stricken, and then angry. 

Ting sighs and strides forward to pat him on the shoulder. He looks at her, bewildered. “Ah, it’s all right. We’re made of tougher stuff than they could get to. Right?” She gives them both an ironic but genuine smile. 

Zuko nods and exits slowly, and Sokka follows.

“Thanks very much, kids,” she calls after them.

“This had to have been more than one person’s,” says Sokka, wiping down the wall. “Either that, or they filled it multiple times.”

Zuko gives him a pained look before stuffing his portion of rag into the dripping crack. “Why would you say that?”

“It’s just an observation,” says Sokka.

There’s an oddly familiar camaraderie when most of the tavern takes notice to wish them safe walking when they leave. Sokka wonders if they suspect they have given them fake names. He wonders if they care.

 

They go back to the palace. It’s still dark. 

The guy had never seemed to stick out too much, in Sokka’s earliest memories. Why is he pretending he doesn’t remember his name? Haska. His name was Haska. 

Seven-year-old Sokka had viewed him with the same sort of awe he’d had for all the adult men of the tribe. That is, until mention of him started to be met with a disapproving sigh, until it became evident that he was not meeting community expectations in some way, and with him, Anaku, another man around the same age. Apparently, they were going on a few too many fishing trips alone, were becoming more reluctant than was normal to leave each other’s sides.

People began to mutter: He was threatening the stability of the tribe and its faltering numbers-- How could he help to ensure the future of the tribe if he would not marry and have children?-- He was upsetting the all-important order of family-- How could he provide for said children if he was trying to take a woman’s role? 

He still remembers the patronizing nudges that other men in the tribe never got-- sad shoulder pats and gentle encouragements to have strength as if someone was dying. “You’re such a bright young man, Haska, why don’t you spend less time with your friend and take some time with the girls? You didn’t hear it from me, but I think Uda would _highly_ enjoy your company.”

They’d had a couple scares from the Fire Nation patrolling nearby, and Sokka guesses, now, that it was this that pushed Haska to give in. He’d married and had a son. Sokka had tried to teach that very kid the all-important skill of how to be a warrior, back before Aang, before all of this happened-- because _Sokka_ was not going to end up like that, no sir, he was going to be appropriately strong and masculine and become a skilled warrior and he was _not_ going to end up weakening himself by liking the same thing as _girls._

The ghost of the sneer he had worn at this sentiment, years before, makes his stomach churn.

Years later, both of them had left the Southern Water Tribe with the other men. When Sokka met back up with his dad, Haska had seemed quiet, grim-- but then, that could have been the war. And as for Anaku, still unmarried, Sokka had inquired after him at the same time. He’d been dead for years, killed by the Fire Nation not six months after they left.

Sokka thinks about this as he stares up at the dark ceiling and fights the urge to investigate the dark corners of the room. About clutching pretty shit memories like the frayed scraps of a last rope, even while not knowing if it would pull you into preservation or ruin, simply because something within you sees yourself reflected back. How ridiculous.

It’s a strange hour of night during which time feels plastic. He can see a vague outline of Zuko’s dark hair where his head is resting on his chest-- he’s probably not even asleep either-- but he still feels a little lost and alone within his own head at this moment. 

He finally closes his eyes with an effort and allows himself to just feel: the stillness, the welcome give of the mattress, Zuko’s arm draped limply across his middle with its steadying weight. He’s got a slight headache. The room is cool. 

He’s not sure there’s any way out of this. Conversely, he’s not sure if he’d want one.

 

_“Actually, you have eleven siblings,” Katara tells him._

_How the hell am I going to protect all of them?_

_Now she’s standing on a boat. He crosses over to her._

_“Tell me it’s not true, I don’t really have eleven siblings.”_

_Katara laughs incredulously. “No. There’s just me.”_

He wakes up. 

For a minute he just stares at the ceiling again. Zuko’s chest is steadily rising and falling next to him. Their feet are tangled. So are the sheets. The first rays of dawn are slipping through the cracks in the curtains.

He was never a worrier. Was he? That was always Katara’s job…

He guesses he does worry about her. Not that she could be any safer back at home. Not that he does anything _but_ worry nowadays. He still hasn’t decided whether to write her that letter, or how.

He thinks about the long span of years that have brought him to this point, a thousand cycles of denial and self-clarity, a thousand dress rehearsals of trying to release this thing into the wild and shrinking right back. 

It’s funny how things work out. The world on a larger scale has turned virtually upside down since he was younger. And yet...

 

Another week slips through his fingers. By the end of it he’s not sure what happened, exactly, except that it has made him exhausted and twitchy. He needs sleep, he knows he does. But there’s no way he’s getting unconscious tonight. Zuko seems to agree, and they’re walking again.

“It’s getting late,” Sokka says. There’s a glow off in the east. “Looks like it might be dawn soon. We should probably get back.”

Zuko frowns. “I don’t think so. Dawn should still be a couple hours off.”

“Well, look, though.” Sokka points at the glow, but as they both look at it he realizes there is something off about it. It’s not the right color for dawn, it’s… redder.

“Let’s go,” says Zuko, voice suddenly tight with urgency, and they take off, no longer caring too much to hide the noise of their footsteps. 

They tear around the last corner some time later, panting, and come upon the Water Tribe embassy, and Sokka’s heart drops into his shoes.

There’s a blaze higher than their heads devouring what’s left of it across the square, and a crowd of people is gathered in front. It’s hard to tell who is doing what in the darkness and the smoke. It’s hard to tell who is _saying_ what over the shouting and the roar of the flames. 

They stand frozen at the sight for a second before Sokka jerks forward as if tugged, tripping over himself in his haste to get to the embassy. Half of him isn’t even surprised, but the other half is still catching up. 

He pushes between a trio of people who are murmuring anxiously to each other, appearing to be gawking bystanders, to get to the people nearest the fire. To his relief, now that he’s closer, he can see figures through the smoke directing great streams of water onto the rapidly slackening blaze with graceful, tense sweeps of the arms-- somebody got out, at least. His eyes are drawn helplessly upward. The symbol of the Disciples of Ozai is burned into the wall.

“Sokka!” Someone grips his arm tightly, and wincing, he turns to see Anata, an aide from the North, her face streaked with soot and her eyes wild. “You’re all right!”

“Is everyone okay?” he says, trying to keep his panic in check. “Was anyone--”

“Everyone’s fine,” she says, still looking over his face as if half suspicious he’s been possessed. “Except you, we thought. You weren’t here.”

“I--” Well, no. 

Another shape hurries towards them through the murk: Yuna. “Oh, good.” She sighs. “I thought you probably weren’t here, but…”

Zuko jogs up to them. “What happened?”

Yuna looks at him, carelessly at first, then does a double take. “Firelord.” She pauses, and her face hardens. “There was an attack. I don’t think I need to say by who.” She gestures sharply to the symbol above their heads. Her eyes sweep up and down his attire, her brow furrowed. Although their dark, nondescript clothes might make them inconspicuous to passersby in the night streets, Sokka realizes suddenly exactly how suspicious it makes them look to someone who knows them. Behind her, the fire is already going out under the onslaught of waterbending, the battered structure of the embassy sadly dripping as the smoke rises.

Zuko’s expression is grim. “Where were the guards?”

Yuna raises her eyebrows. “You know, that’s an excellent question. Seems that the guards you set were, and still are, nowhere to be found. Funny, that.”

“I’ll set more. I’ll pick them myself, or you can--”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” Yuna glances back at the embassy, and then back at him. “I think we’ll be setting our own guard from now on. Seems like the most help _you_ could give would be to warn the Earth Kingdom embassy. They’re probably next.”

She stalks away.  
They stand in silence for a minute before Sokka speaks. “We gotta find these guys.”

“I know,” says Zuko. 

The Disciples have infiltrated the palace guard, because of course they have. What are they supposed to do, anyway, fire the entire guard and hire anew?

Actually…

The Council would never stand for that, though.

Sokka kind of wants to go home. 

But then again, he doesn’t want them to win. 

 

“Let’s think about this logically.” 

Ursa and Iroh are set to leave on a trip to oversee the former Earth Kingdom colonies’ progress the next day, the sunlight coming through the leaves of the bush behind which Sokka and Zuko are hunkered is making pretty dappled patterns across Zuko’s face. It’s very distracting. 

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

Zuko grimaces.

“Actually, never mind,” Sokka amends quickly, “how about-- Just think about how much she loves you. I think it’s pretty unlikely that she’d face eternal banishment for you but wouldn’t accept you for being bi.”

They squint at Ursa from between the leaves. She’s watering a rosebush. 

“Really. Just doesn’t follow.”

Zuko brushes a leaf out of Sokka’s hair, and tucks a loose strand of hair behind his ear, and by the way he picks one of the flowers from the bush looks like he’s seriously considering putting that behind Sokka’s ear as well for how perfectly it fulfills his dual urges of being closer to Sokka and avoiding this conversation, when Sokka catches his hand gently, frowning at him a little.

“Hey, it’s your call. It’s not a big deal if you don’t want to.” Sokka glances at Ursa again, digging his fingers into the soil a little, scrunching up his shoulders. He looks back at Zuko. There’s a question he wants to ask, more casually than he really feels. “It’s still hard, huh? Even though you’ve done it before?”

Zuko looks away from him to the side at the foliage, frowning. He opens his mouth, but pauses before continuing. 

“It’s still hard,” he settles on. “But I guess it does… It does get easier. You have a better idea how to do it.”

Sokka nods slowly. Zuko knows that he has not told this to anyone but Zuko himself, by virtue of their position. 

He looks up to find Zuko watching him with a determined expression. He makes to get up. “I’m gonna do it.” He stands.

A bit later, when Ursa is wrapping Zuko tightly in a hug and Sokka is giving him a wordless thumbs up from behind the bush, he feels doubtful once again. Zuko is as angry and determined to confront this as he ever has been about anything else. Sokka wants to do it. But to risk it all, when the world is just settling into peace again… Is it worth it? 

And how far would they get, if they have to rely on secrecy to move forward?

 

Zuko said it wasn’t a ball, but this is _totally_ a ball. How else would you explain this massive room with the high vaulted ceiling and pearlescent floor? The high number of well-dressed elites mingling and politely getting only slightly drunk? The uniformed band settled decently into the corner? 

All right, there’s no one dancing. But whether it’s to celebrate the peaceful dissolution and resettlement of the youngest Earth Kingdom colony or not, this is a ball. Zuko’s shoulder-spike thingies, today roughly twice as tall and unnecessarily dangerous as usual, testify to it. 

After the burning of an embassy, it seems in particularly bad taste. _But the invitations,_ protested the organizers. _The food preparations!_

The Council didn’t seem very amenable to the idea of putting it off.

He surveys the room as the Earth Kingdom ambassador politely exits their conversation to get another drink. He’s just about to set off to see if he can procure some food when he’s bumped into from the side.

“Sorry,” he says, turning and holding out his hands.

The person who bumped him stumbles a little, grabbing onto his arm for a moment to steady themselves, and looks up. 

_Aw, shit,_ Sokka thinks. 

It’s the ex-Minister of Commoner Affairs. The same one that Zuko banned from the palace for a number of reasons, not least of which was his repeated attempts to suggest Zuko was “favoring foreigners over his own people.” Sokka wasn’t sorry to see him go. 

The man squints at Sokka. He has clearly imbibed a little more than is proper for his class and the occasion, and his usual glasses are folded in the collar of his robes instead of on his face. “Lin, is that you?”

“Uh…” says Sokka, brushing the guy’s arm off with a little disgust, “You have the wrong--”

“This whole country,” Ozinjo says loudly, attempting to put his arm around Sokka’s shoulders; Sokka easily sidesteps him, watching in distaste as the man stumbles. “This whole country is really… Do you know that just last month, when my cousin-- visited the Earth colo-- the Earth _Kingdom_ \-- colonies-- they weren’t even allowed to bring a military delegation? ‘S an insult!”

Sokka folds his arms as the guy sways on his feet. “You’re not allowed in the palace anymore. How did you get in?”

“Ohhh.” Ozinjo waves a hand fantastically. “I have my ways. You’re so doubtful all time, Lin!”

He’s gotta be _extremely_ drunk if he’s mistaken Sokka’s all-blue attire for Fire Nation garb.

“This Firelord,” Ozinjo scoffs, patting down the front of his own robes, “he’s really… ah, you know.” He puts his hand up to the side of his mouth as if to impart something confidential. “A few bonfires short of a twig, ‘f you know… pathetic. Cares more about… other nations--” He sniffs and takes a long swig of the drink in his hand, all the while impervious to Sokka’s glaring at him. “What happened to… thinking of the Fire Nation first? Now the other countries are taking, taking…” He frowns in concentration. “They’re doing… they’re taking more from us! War reparations, what a _ridiculous_ thing… “ He finishes off the drink. “Hangs on that upstart ambassador’s every word, never listened to _me_ at all, and… if he loves that commoner so much, why doesn’t he just marry him? Actually...” He pauses to tap his scraggly-haired chin in thought for a moment before waving his hand dismissively as if to say _nah, no way._

“Have you ever considered,” says Sokka scathingly, “that maybe-- _cah-razy_ idea, I know, but have you _ever_ considered-- that maybe Z-- the Firelord knows that the Fire Nation is doing just fine, and that _maybe_ helping out the other nations after, you know, attacking them for a century might help to restore harmony?” He looks around without hope for the Earth Kingdom ambassador, but she’s nowhere to be seen.

“Pfah, harmony?” Ozinjo breaks out into unpleasant laughter. “The Fire Nation was more than ready to lead the world into a new age of glory, and-- all that… ” He shakes his head, now patting over his own forehead. “Have you seen my glasses, Lin? I can’t find them anywhere…”

Sokka remains stonily silent. 

Ozinjo shrugs. “Princess Azula would have been a much better Firelord, ‘s’all. Alas, we have wound up with this… Well, until next time, Lin.” He saunters off.

Sokka flags down the guards as soon as he’s out of earshot, and feels slightly vindicated as he watches them escort him out. 

Now if only he knew how the bastard got in.

He starts to feel more conscious of the nobility pressing in around him. How many of them snuck a person like Ozinjo in with them? How many of them didn’t much care if the Water Tribe Embassy burned down?

He renews his search for food in desperate earnestness. Something to distract, anything. 

 

If he were back home, he might have been married already. That’s a weird thought. 

His eyes are well-adjusted to the dark by now, seeing as he’s been straining to discern every odd-looking shadow. You know, maybe they should sleep with the lights on? He’s not sure if that would bother Zuko. 

One shadow in particular is flickering a little bit, but he knows that’s just his eyes playing tricks on him. Or his mind, rather…

He watches it flow across the dim outline of a chair and feels his body lock up. For a moment things stretch out, the shadow pauses for an eternity, and Sokka is acutely aware of the pounding of his heart. 

Then the moment passes, and the shadow flickers on, and Sokka feels as if he is watching himself from above rather than firmly situated in his body as he springs up. As he feels for the handle of his sword, mercifully set beside the bed, the blade lights up with a shimmering red glare as a burst of firebending fills the room. 

He dodges the blast easily and charges towards the assailant with blade forward, only to be spun off balance from the side as another blast of firebending appears from that direction. The waning crescent moon visible through the window offers little light. From behind him, another blast of firebending appears, giving him a wide berth and directed towards the direction of the attackers, and he knows that Zuko has woken up. The air warms quickly, and there is a strong scent of something in the air-- ginger, maybe--

He makes for the assailant directly in front of him, but the light is dim. His heart is pounding as he lunges somewhat blindly for the attacker. He’s not sure, but he thinks they’re backing away? 

He dodges another fire blast from his left and makes for it, but his sword meets only air. He looks quickly around and finds Zuko on the other side of the room, surrounded-- they weren’t going for Sokka.

It happens so fast, and yet so slowly-- the attackers close in around Zuko, who seems to be holding his own fairly well-- but it’s dark, and they were surprised, and they are outnumbered-- nevertheless Zuko is still defending against all firebending attacks as Sokka chases the last assailant towards the fight-- this assailant snatches up a heavy bookend from the shelf nearby and spins deftly, wedging themselves into the middle of the scuffle-- Sokka moves forward, raising his sword--

Only to wheeze in surprise and pain as his midsection hits that _god_ damn _fucking_ chair, the one that has been in Zuko’s family for three hundred years, the one that they had moved out and which the palace staff had evidently moved back in, and his sword falls limply over the arm and seat instead of defending against an attack. 

And a blow falls as the firebenders around Zuko fall strategically back. 

Zuko crumples, and as the rest of them close in like a swarm of wolf-bats, Sokka hears for the first time the pounding on the door. The guards have finally noticed something is amiss.

Regaining his strength with panic, Sokka shoves the chair aside and barrels into the crowd swinging, and most of them fall back a bit. The door cracks, splintering, and the attackers pause. 

Then they flee, disappearing back into the open secret passageway from whence they came, slamming the door behind them. He follows, shoving the door open and charging forward, but he only gets a couple yards before he stops short as if reaching the end of a rope, and heart sinking, runs back. He passes a symbol burned into the wall—the Disciples of Ozai.

Zuko is still splayed out on the floor. 

“Zuko?” He’s still breathing. But there’s blood trickling from a wound on his head, and he’s not responding to anything. 

The doors at last burst fully open, what looks like all the guards in the hallway swarming in.

“Call the medics,” says Tsui Ling sharply at a glance. She rushes forward. “What happened?”

An unpleasant, irresistible numbness is stealing over Sokka, and yet his heart is still pounding and his limbs feel electrified. “We were attacked. The secret passageway.”

Zuko is lying still, his face deathly pale.

“Check the perimeter,” says Tsui Ling to two of the other guards, and they hurry off. Another three rush down the passageway, the sound of their footsteps quickly fading. She glances at him before bending to check Zuko, though her view is limited by the way Sokka leans over him.  
She stops, looking instead at him. She opens her mouth to say something, but pauses, and at that moment the medics clatter into the room. 

They brush Sokka aside, knocking his grip from Zuko’s shirt, and lift him onto a stretcher, hurrying out. A dozen more guards accompany them as they swarm out, and helplessly Sokka follows, loose hair, bare feet, and all. They take Zuko to the royal family’s private medical center, setting him onto a bed and quickly bustling around, taking out instruments. Guards take up their stations around the perimeter of the room. One he doesn’t recognize stops him as he tries to enter.

“I have to get in there,” he says desperately. 

The guard looks at him suspiciously. “No entrance.”

“Why not?” he says, outraged.

The sound of running feet appears, and he turns to find Hung Wah jogging up, face flushed. “I just heard,” she says. She takes in the scene for a moment, glances into the room at Zuko’s bed, and looks back at Sokka. “There’s nothing you can do here, Ambassador.”

Sokka bristles. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Do you want to make a scene? Let the medics do their job.”

Sokka swallows, heart still pounding. Every muscle in his body is screaming at him to stay, but reluctantly he allows himself to be led aside to an emptier area of the corridor. 

“Why were you there?”

“What do you mean?” says Sokka.

She frowns at him disapprovingly. “Word travels fast. I think you know what I’m talking about. And if you would kindly lower your sword.”

He is tense. “Is that really what’s important right now?”

Her eyes bore into him. “I have every intention of finding out who is responsible for this attack. You have no alibi.”

“You think _I_ did this to him? And what about the symbol of the Disciples on the wall?” 

“There was no such symbol,” she says coolly. “If you would put down your _sword,_ Ambassador.”

His knuckles are white on his sword handle. There is the scent of ginger. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“I don’t _kid,_ Ambassador.” She jerks her head. A pair of guards who have been watching move forward. “We’ll have to take you into custody. Unless,” and here she raises her eyebrows, “you have a good reason for being in the Firelord’s room in the middle of the night?”

He doesn’t move. Ginger. The scent of ginger. 

How did she get here so fast, anyway?

“For the last time, _lower your sword.”_

He starts backing up, only to find another four guards at his back. 

“Don’t cause a scene. I’m sure the commotion wouldn’t be good for the Firelord’s recovery.” She takes a step towards the medical center door. 

He stops. 

He lowers his sword.

Hung Wah watches him motionlessly as he’s pulled away. He cranes his neck to catch a last glimpse of where he knows Zuko is lying, but even as he watches Hung Wah enters into the room and shuts the doors with a very final-sounding _boom._

He’s dragged across the palace grounds until they reach the dungeons, where he’s thrown without ceremony into an empty cell. So much for a thawing of the Fire Nation’s government.

He hears the guards’ footsteps echo on the stone as they move back and forth from time to time. He strains his eyes and fingers for any sign of a weakness in the walls or door. He does his best to ignore the shadows, thinking instead of Zuko, and how and why he needs to get out of here, but this does not improve things much.

So the rest of that night passes.

 

After some hours-- two, maybe, or three, or six-- he hears footsteps again, but these don’t stop and turn habitually at the beginning of the corridor. They continue right down the hallway and stop in front of his cell.

He and Tsui Ling stare at each other across the bars. At Tsui Ling’s shoulder stands another guard he does not recognize, and the jailer, who begins to unlock the cell.

“You’re going back to the palace. Hung Wah’s orders,” Tsui Ling says. She looks worn and tired.

The cell door swings open, and his hands are quickly bound. They each take one of his arms and firmly guide him down the corridor. 

“Do you really think I’m the threat here, or are you just too scared to do anything otherwise?” he says. 

She doesn’t answer, and he’s brought out of the prison. He blinks in the sunlight, slanted into their faces. It’s morning. Tsui Ling and the other guard’s red and gold livery gleam in the sunlight. 

They reach the outer gate surrounding the palace, at which point they pass through and take a series of quiet, well-manicured walkways through the upper class’s villas. This may be the faster route, if roundabout, but taking a palace prisoner outside the gates is generally against protocol for palace guards. And it’s completely silent. No one is around. They’re entering a series of narrow, dim alleyways.

Are they going to _kill_ him?

They pass through one last alleyway. Far off, at the other end between the shadow of the two buildings, is a glimpse of the biggest market in the city, with dense crowds bustling to and fro, the clamor of voices and riot of colors of wares and stands a stark contrast with the tranquility of the gated noble houses. 

Entire body feeling wound like a spring, Sokka is calculating how he might slip away. This might be his only chance. There is a tug on his bound hands and he stiffens. 

Something long and cool has been pressed into his hands. The hands on his arms have left him. His fingers scrabble downwards and then up: a small pommel and cross-guard. 

He turns quickly. Tsui Ling is looking at him steadily with a set expression, and her deputy is looking faux-casually up at the blue mid-morning sky as if cloud-gazing. 

“Ambassador,” says Tsui Ling, gazing at him intently, “I order you to drop the knife. Evading arrest is illegal under the laws of the Firelord.” 

He stares at her. As if his body has gotten the message faster than his brain, he takes a few quick steps towards the marketplace. 

“Stand down, Ambassador, I’m warning you. The royal guard is authorized to use deadly force,” says Tsui Ling, her voice tired and her hands limp by her sides. Her deputy crosses her arms and drums her fingers on her elbow, still staring up at the sky. 

Backing up, he grips the knife more securely, and when Tsui Ling makes no more move except to stare at him in a troubled way, he turns and bolts, ducking into the crowd. Within twenty seconds he’s lost all sight of them in the crush of bodies. 

He doesn’t stop, weaving through currents of people and forcing himself to move at a normal pace so as not to arouse suspicion, until he is a few miles away, out of the market and into the more complex city streets. He stops in another alleyway to cut his bonds, which he tucks into a pocket. No sense in leaving traces of where he’s been behind.

Where to now? 

The Embassy is destroyed. The palace is no longer safe. Katara and company are far away, and he has no method of reaching them, no resources, and no way of passing by undetected. 

What unlucky asshole would be so kind-hearted and care so little for self-preservation that they’d shelter a fugitive hunted by both a paramilitary group and the royal administration? What poor bastard would be willing to take on that burden? What poor bastard would _he_ be willing to hand that burden?

He jogs up somewhat out of breath. The glass in the boarded up window has not been replaced. There is no light peeking out this time. For the first time, now that he is looking in the daylight, he sees a metal grill surrounding a small peephole at eye level.

He tries the handle. Locked. 

He knocks. 

The wooden cover on the peephole swings back, and a brown eye peers at him. It widens. “Oh!” 

The peephole is quickly covered, and there is the sound of multiple locks being undone and drawn back. The door opens, and Shizuki, taking his wrist, pulls him quickly but gently inside. 

“There’s been a lot of soldiers around,” she says in a hushed voice. “Ever since the lockdown.” The room is dim. No one is around.

“Lockdown?” he says numbly.

“Yeah. After the Firelord got attacked, the whole city’s locked down. No one in, no one out, not even Prince Iroh and former Princess Ursa.” She frowns at him. “Are you okay? You look dead on your feet. Where’s Li?”

He struggles to answer. “He…” He shakes his head. How could he explain this? He scrubs his face with his free hand. 

Her face falls. “Did something happen to him?”

He doesn’t know how to answer, but apparently his face is answer enough.

“Come on. We’ll talk to Ting.”

Behind the far edge of the bar, there is a doorway which opens into a short, dark hallway, at the end of which they turn a sharp corner to access a creaky set of stairs. At the top, they reach an equally dark and creaky hallway filled with doors. Under the first door on the left, warm light seeps out. Shizuki knocks.

“What happened?” says Ting immediately upon seeing his face. 

“It…” Sokka pauses in agony. If he and Zuko get out of this, what will be waiting for them on the other side? What fresh hell will he have awoken by letting loose everything? Is he overreacting, is he losing it-- he doesn’t know. But it’s not his secret to tell-- it’s _theirs._ Both of theirs. And while he wastes time here Zuko could be dying. 

“We were-- we got attacked, at night, last night. He’s wounded, and maybe dying, and I don’t know how to-- I have to get to him.”

“Damned soldiers,” mutters Ting furiously. “Where is he?”

“He’s being-- held.” 

“Where? We might be able to get him out. We used to conduct raids that way all the time during the First Purges under Sozin.”

“He’s…” Sokka shakes his head, why he doesn’t know. “I… I’m not...” His heart is beating fast like a cornered animal, and he needs to go, _right fucking now._ But he has only Tsui Ling’s dagger on him, and how the hell is he going to get back inside the palace? He’s nearly trembling with adrenaline and anxiety.

“Hey, hey,” says Shizuki, shaking his shoulder lightly. She looks at Ting in worry. 

“You won’t be able to get him out, wherever he is, by yourself,” says Ting wisely with a sigh. “Stay here tonight. We’ll make plans in the morning.”

“But…” 

“You need rest,” says Ting firmly. 

He’s having trouble coming up with a counterargument. Just an hour, maybe two-- if they can really help… After all, he’s a little short on allies right now.

Shizuki leads him back out into the hall and farther down it to the last door on the right. “You should get some sleep,” she whispers to him. “We’ll figure something out in the morning. Don’t worry, it’s only a few hours from now. Okay?” She pats his shoulder awkwardly.

“Thanks,” he whispers. “I really…”

“Hey,” she says, “we’ll find him.”

“They want him dead,” says Sokka, and then immediately regrets it.

“They want all of us dead,” Shizuki says quietly back with a shrug. 

Inside the room he finds a few empty beds and a cabinet. He’s not sure _how_ he’s supposed to sleep-- the adrenaline-- but he has just enough energy to set the knife he is still carrying on the cabinet before falling onto a bed and blacking out.

 

When he wakes up, he doesn’t know where he is.

He jolts upright, looking around wildly, his mind panicked and yet groggy, and sees only the bare wooden walls of a small room. He sits still, the blankets pooled around his hips and his heart pounding, and listens. There is the creaking of footsteps on wood and the sound of conversation coming from somewhere behind the door. 

Numbly, he swings his legs over the side of the bed, and realizes with surprise that he still has his shoes on. Abruptly, he remembers what happened.

He puts his face in his hands.

There are no windows, and he doesn’t know what time it is, but there’s not a moment to lose. He makes for the door and opens it cautiously.

There is no one in the hallway. He makes his way to the left and begins to descend. At the bottom of the stairs, he finds that the conversation he heard was not coming from the main room of the tavern, but from another room on the other side of the stairs. He listens for a few seconds.

“...look, all I’m saying is that we should be cautious. Azula becoming Firelord would be-- a disaster. I just think we shouldn’t be sticking our necks out too much, that’s all. Maybe we can--”

“We are _not_ going to stand by quietly,” says another voice sharply. He recognizes that one-- Tao Zu, he thinks.

“Look, I’m tired,” says the first voice again, exasperated. “I just want to…” There is a pause. “I want to live normally. I don’t want to look over my shoulder every other second. Haven’t you ever wanted that?”

“I don’t _want_ to want that,” says Tao Zu, outraged.

“Oh, you don’t _want_ to want that,” says the first voice sardonically.

“There will be none of that at breakfast in my house,” comes Ting’s voice sternly, in tandem with the rhythmic clicking of a cane. “You two play nice now.”

“I was just tryin’ to-- Ugh.” The first voice begins coming towards him, and he presses himself against the wall quickly. 

“What, we’re too dangerous for you to be seen around us?” Tao Zu snaps.

A man storms out right next to Sokka, not noticing him, and yanks the front door open and closes it after himself with a slam.

There’s a few seconds of silence. “I shouldn’t have said that to him,” says Tao Zu quietly. There is the sound of more footsteps, and Tao Zu comes hurrying out of the room and follows the man out the door.

He waits half a minute before turning the corner himself.

Shizuki and Ting are seated at an otherwise empty table, Ting staring thoughtfully at the wall and Shizuki glaring down at a bowl of jook. They both look up as he enters.

“Hey,” says Shizuki, her eyes widening. She smiles a little ruefully. “How you feeling?” She inclines her head towards the chair next to her. “You wanna sit down? You want some jook?”

He doesn’t know what else to do, so he sits, but declines the porridge. For once he’s not hungry. 

Shizuki stares into her jook and stirs it half-heartedly. 

Ting folds her hands on the table top, looking at him. “How about you tell us what happened?”

She has a number of maps spread out over the table, Sokka notices. The top one has notes scrawled over every inch of the page in cramped handwriting: _Pipe too small; guard changes every hour; cell doors give if lifted and pried upwards._

“I can’t…” He shakes his head. This newfound inability to string words together is not making this any easier. “I can’t do that. Not completely.”

Ting gives him a grim smile. “I understand. We don’t need all the details-- just enough to let us figure out where he is.”

He weighs his options. Everything seems to be crashing down. “I know where he is. I just don’t know how to get to him.”

Shizuki frowns. “Where is he, then?”

“The palace,” he admits after a moment of hesitation. 

Shizuki’s eyebrows shoot up. “The palace? As in, the palace, where the Firelord lives? Like… the _palace?_ Why is he in there?”

He shakes his head mutely. “That’s… around where we were attacked.”

Shizuki’s expression falls. “And just when we thought things might be changing for the better up there! On the night the Firelord was attacked too-- things really are falling to pieces, aren’t they?”

Oh, that’s right. He forgot that the entire city would know about Zuko’s attempted assassination by now.

Ting is giving him a considering look. “Are you sure he is there?”

“As sure as I can be about anything,” he replies. He should have known something like this would happen. 

Ting leans forward. “Are you sure that is all you can tell us?”

“What more do you want to know?”

She gives him a kindly smile. “Some more information on who you are would be a start.”

There are a few moments of silence during which the creaking of the house is the only sound. He coughs. “So you noticed I’m not Fire Nation born and bred?”

“Kid, you stick out like a platypus-bear wearing a tutu,” says Ting with a small laugh.

Shizuki cracks an uncertain smile. “I thought Li must be nobility when I first met him. But when he brought you along-- you’re Water Tribe, aren’t you? One of the Embassy staff.”

“You’re not wrong,” he says quietly. 

“Then--” She gives him a hopeful look. “Do you know what’s going on up there?”

He looks away. How can he explain this? 

Haltingly, he manages to convey that through his Embassy political connections, he has deduced that the attack on the Firelord came from within, and that conversely to all official statements, the Firelord was not safe and was certainly not on the mend, as the attacker, the Firelord’s senior advisor working with the Disciples of Ozai, was still at large and close by. With each word Ting’s face grows grimmer and Shizuki’s sadder, and when he has finished Shizuki is anxiously crumpling the corners of the maps covering the table.

“So you’re saying that whoever did this really does intend Princess Azula to be Firelord, or someone else,” says Shizuki in a small voice.

“As far as I can tell, yeah.”

“We’d all be fucked,” she says in horror. “Again. Well, more than we have been, recently.”

Ting is looking at the opposite wall thoughtfully. “We’ve never broken into the palace before. Never quite seemed possible. And there was no point. But now that the Firelord has been decreasing military presence...”

“What?” says Sokka, hardly daring to believe what he is hearing. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re just going to-- uh, believe me and break into the palace, just like that? To get-- Li? Or the Firelord?”

“I think both is a suitable goal,” says Ting with a short nod, sounding more upbeat again. She cracks her wizened knuckles. Catching his eye again, she gives him a surprisingly sharp smile. “Besides, we’ve been wanting to get revenge on soldiers for ages. And if the Disciples of Ozai have infiltrated the guard-- well, the whole thing is rotten.”

“I bet the Avatar is coming,” says Shizuki, starting to sound slightly awed. “We might get some help there, maybe. If we’re really doing this.”

Sokka is sure that he is coming, he and whoever he had enough time to gather up, but whether he can arrive fast enough is the question.

 

That afternoon brings a level of preparations that’s giving Sokka unpleasant flashbacks to before the war ended. He is brought around the neighborhood surrounding the tavern to essentially tell his version of events to the residents and patrons, to allow them to decide whether they want to take part in that night’s raid. This goes on until evening, when the city, at least here, comes back alive.

Lights are flicking on, spilling golden light out of doorways. The road gets narrower, and they start to see other people, cloaked and hooded mostly, but many of them talking and laughing merrily. He hears snatches of a song from a street or two over. As they turn a corner into yet another narrow lane, the lights get brighter as they number of lit doors and windows increase.

“Hey, ‘Zuki!” shouts a voice from a doorway they pass, and as the person’s silhouette steps forward into the street the light falls so as to illuminate a young face with dramatic eye makeup. “Got someone new with you tonight!” They eye Sokka curiously. “You wanna come in?”

Shizuki stops here to give her pitch, and several people come out of the house to lean out of the doorway listening before they move on.

As they continue deeper and deeper into narrower and narrower streets, all leaping to life with the sound of opening doors and the glows of blue and red colored lanterns, they hear many similar calls, all of which Shizuki answers cheerfully. 

He is conscious of how out of place he is, how many delicate layers of omitted truths exist between him and Shizuki, so confident in the ability of their mutual subcultural membership to solve this problem of his. There’s history here, old history. He thinks of Haska and Anaku and of what truths might exist buried in the Southern Water Tribe. 

Soon they have gathered some four dozen people brazen enough or angry enough to join the break-in, and he is pulled aside to confirm, alter, and augment knowledge about the construction and guard of the palace. He realizes at that point that they don’t expect to fully achieve their goal, at least not where the Firelord is concerned-- the struggle, they think, will be enough to get things moving. His task, conversely, is to attempt to locate “Li.” He dearly hopes that he can deliver.

In the midst of all this commotion of which the Jumping Dolphin-Squid is the center, Ting beckons him into the room with the quilts. She opens another of the cabinets, this one filled with weapons, and looks to him. “You’re going to want something more than that knife.”

There’s only one sword (and certainly no boomerangs), and it is weighted differently and made more poorly than his own sword, but its handle in his palm is a comforting point of familiarity nonetheless.

The palace is dark. There are fewer guards posted at the entrances to the secret passages he knows than he would expect, and they are easily taken down. 

Of course, Hung Wah wouldn’t know that he had used them about twice a day to sneak into and out of the royal apartments.

Sokka is out in the corridor, scouting for guards before his group can hurry on, when he is grabbed roughly from behind, a hand clapping tightly over his mouth. He goes for his sword, and when that doesn’t work, his elbow, but a hiss stops him.

“What are you doing here? Why would you come back?”

He stops struggling, and the arms slowly release their bruising grip. He turns. The light is dim, but it is Tsui Ling, looking both angry and nervous. 

He weighs his options. But before he can speak, she continues quickly.

“He’s not going to hold on much longer. And when the administration changes, the last protections for you here will be gone.”

“Where is he?”

“You have to leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Not without him. Why are you trying to stop me? You don’t think I did it, and you don’t want him to die.”

“Would you keep it down?” she hisses angrily, looking both ways down the hall. “No, of course I don’t think you attacked him. Of course I don’t want him to die. But we’re in dangerous days again. The last few years has only been the eye of storm.”

“It might not be if you _do_ something about it.” 

He notices that her right arm is bandaged. “What happened to your arm?”

“Evidence for your ‘escape,’” she says sourly, looking as if she is almost regretting it.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know for sure. They’ve removed me from the captainship after you got away. But he’s either in the royal apartments or the medical center, as far as I know. Only the Council knows exactly where he is, and the few guards they trust to guard him.”

He backs up before she can grab him. “Good enough.”

She swears quietly, but he is gone before he hears what she says next.

 

It is on the way to the royal apartments that their group is seen, and a shout goes up. The first two guards are easily taken out, but there are a dozen more behind, and the scene quickly devolves into a skirmish. 

The number of assailants seems to be endless, and they end up ringed in in the corridor, until to Sokka’s surprise he hears a yell, and a new wave of combatants charges in from the corner. At their head is Tsui Ling.

The corridor explodes into a fresh wave of fighting, allowing him to press forward. 

It is as he is passing the throne room that a blast of fire knocks him off balance, barely missing him.

Opposite him, there is a solitary figure standing across the hallway. It’s Hung Wah.

“Where’s Zuko?”

“You.” She stalks towards him. “Of course it’s you again. What do I have to do to get _rid_ of you?” 

She creates two rings of fire that spin towards him from both sides, leaving him no choice but to slip into the throne room entrance behind him. She severs the curtains, leaving them to smolder on the floor, and levels a fireball at him. He swings behind a pillar. It scorches off some of the elaborate golden carvings, showering him with sparks and flecks of scorched wood. “Can’t you see I’m only doing what’s best for my country? You came all the way here to secure _your_ country’s future, didn’t you?”

“The Disciples? Really? So much for thinking the war was a mistake,” calls Sokka, breathing hard. He can hear her footsteps echoing on the stone. Which side is she approaching from?

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Tap, tap, tap. “I needed muscle, and they were easy to manipulate, and to infiltrate. I know all of their secrets. I was going to get rid of them. I was just trying to do this _quietly.”_

He swings around the left side of the pillar just in time to avoid a thick arc of fire that slices through the pillar from his right. It flames across the hall into the opposite wall, setting a piece of drapery aflame. The severed segment of pillar, groaning, crashes onto the floor so hard it cracks the tile, and Sokka is forced to jump back instead of leveling a swing at her. For a moment they stare at each other across from the flaming pillar. 

“I have to think of the Fire Nation first. And to do that, I have to get rid of those who are holding us back. Azula was a decent choice for a better ruler.” She slices right through the piece of flaming wood with a controlled blade, and the force propels the two pieces away so that she can take a step through the middle. 

“And if she didn’t work out?”

“Then I’d keep going down the line until I found a suitable one. There’s plenty of distant cousins. I’m patient.”

He falls back, ducking behind another pillar into the shadows to dodge a long lash of fire.  
“I’m a public servant, Ambassador. It’s my job to protect my country, even from internal threats. Don’t be naive.” 

He backs up slowly, his face to her. He has landed in a patch of shadows where multiple pillars are more closely set, the torches long gone out, and her eyes are roving, searching. Quickly but quietly, he slips around her right flank, only to spring out with a stroke that would separate limb from body. 

She notices him at the last second and jerks away, but he catches her shoulder, and she grunts, backing up quickly as a darker patch blooms on the shoulder of her red tunic. Off balance for the moment, she falls back as he presses his advantage. But as she ducks another stroke, her good arm comes up to form a fire dagger.

He staggers back as a white-hot pain hits him in the side. Spots swim in his vision. He dimly hears a satisfied huff above him, and lurches to the side to avoid another jet of fire, only to trip and land with a nerve-shattering pain on his burned side. He tries to focus. He’s fallen into the normally flame-filled trench before the throne. It is now dark and empty.

“You see, you’re trying to destroy the very pillars of our society,” calls Hung Wah scornfully. “You and your influence over the Firelord.”

He struggles to his feet, hand tightening around his sword, as her face appears above the lip. 

“And I just can’t allow that.” She surveys him, and matter-of-factly shoots a jet of fire down into the trench. 

He jumps, head spinning, and just manages to hook a hand over the low fence surrounding the throne’s raised platform as the entire trench ignites into flames, racing down its length at the speed of a tsunami. Scrabbling desperately, he heaves his heavy sword arm upwards and manages to lodge the cross-guard across the edge, using this to drag himself up and over onto the ground at the feet of the throne, hardly aware of his heart galloping at a punishing pace.

With a frustrated huff, Hung Wah makes a shoving motion with her hands, and he rolls behind the throne just in time to avoid the onslaught of flames gathered from the trench. The light glimmers, liquid-like, on the gold of the arched back and arms of the throne.

“I know it might seem like it,” Hung Wah calls, “but I don’t hate you. I just hate what you’re doing.”

He gets back on his feet in time to see her part the flames in the trench and leap across. He comes out swinging again, and takes off a piece of loose sleeve while she is off balance. His next stroke swings wide, lodging his blade in the arm of the throne, and wood splinters fly as he yanks it out in a hurry to avoid another wave of fire gathered from the trench. This one washes over the throne proper, setting parts of it ablaze. 

“My love is for my country. You have to understand why I have to protect it from the likes of you, and your--” She sneers. “--boyfriend.” 

He’s running out of platform to back up on. The gold on the throne is melting, dripping off to burn into the platform with a sizzling hiss. The light from the trench fire lights her face from below, giving her an eerie glow that the fanatical light in her eyes doesn’t diminish. “You’ve brought the royal family, and the Fire Nation, lower than I thought possible. You have to go.”

“And it’s nothing personal, right?” says Sokka, going for sarcasm but his voice shaking. Dimly he registers another crash as the flames, having moved upwards along the pillars in their struggles, rend part of the elaborate carvings from the rest of the ceiling across the trench. The black mirrored tiles make it look as if they are standing in a box fully made of flames.

“I would’ve said not,” says Hung Wah, completely seriously, “but you have made it very personal.” The throne is between them, acting as both cover and impediment for both of them. As she raises her arms for another wave, aiming to drown him in it, he puts all his strength into another swing. 

His sword is blocked by the throne. But so forceful was his stroke, and so weak has the leg of the arch been made by the burning and melting, that it cleaves through it as if it were no more than a burnt piece of bread, wounding Hung Wah in her as yet uninjured arm. With a hiss of pain she staggers back, arms falling, but part of her attack lands, covering his hands and arms in a terrible heat. He refuses to let go of the sword, but the pain is such that he wonders wildly if the heat will meld his sword-hilt to his hand. It feels as if the flesh will peel right off. 

He watches her try to lift her arms and pause with a pained wince. The smoke is making it hard to even see her. And to breathe. His eyes are streaming, as are hers, though it doesn’t diminish the feverish light in them. She shakes her head slowly, lifting her chin to stare down her nose at him. “You’ll destroy even your own country this way. Trying to tear a culture down instead of build it up. You don’t deserve-- to stand in this hall. You don’t belong here.”

For the first time utter rage fills him, though he has trouble giving his next utterance the intensity it deserves through the smoke in his lungs and his coughing. “W-- wanna _bet?”_

Her eyes glint. “Yes.”

The throne cracks loudly, jerking to Hung Wah’s side as the leg on that side gives out. Almost before he knows what he’s doing he shoves, hard, and through the haze of smoke and the explosion of pain in his hands watches Hung Wah dart quickly out of the way as the throne careens onto its side and then into the trench of flames with a sickening crash. 

The way cleared, he struggles forward again. With the smoke obscuring the edges of the platform, their maneuverability is limited. Sokka would think that with both her arms injured and oxygen running low, Hung Wah and her firebending would be at a disadvantage, but she deals him another burning blow to his left shoulder, and he falls back. The sword falls to the side with a clang just out of his reach, the blade lying in the fire, and with a swift, forceful stroke, Hung Wah lashes out. He rolls out of the way, only to find that he had not even been her goal-- the sword, poorly made in the first place and weakened by the fire, has been broken just below the hilt, the hilt and stump flying off to his left with the force. She had no tangible defense against a physical weapon at close range, and now that advantage is lost.

Sokka snatches up the stump of a sword blindly and moves forward, stumbling through the smoke. He’s surrounded on all sides by fire. The wall behind the throne, and the heavy relief adorning it, look like they are about to give way. Hung Wah’s face looms up before him, and he backs up, Hung Wah following, until their positions have been switched, and he stands with his back to the flames instead of the wall.

His eyes flit desperately side to side, looking for an out-- there’s nothing, except-- he glances up.

“The world will be better off without your kind,” says Hung Wah at last with a scary kind of determination. 

He hurls the stump of the sword as hard as he can upwards, and his aim is true-- it hits the delicate piece of wood still adhering the enormous dragon relief to the wall behind the throne, and the sculpture finally cracks, splintering away at last. There’s but a second to get out of the way before the pieces begin crashing down around their heads, pummeling the platform’s now-fire scarred floor and rolling into the trench. He hears a yell of pain. He dives to the side, covering his head, until the falling has ceased. 

When he looks up, covering his mouth and nose in the greatly increased smoke and now dust kicked up by the falling pieces, a large chunk lies across the trench of fire: a bridge to a way out. And Hung Wah is lying half underneath a sizable chunk of golden relief. She appears to be out cold.

He looks at the chunk of wall bridging the trench. It’s quickly being devoured by the flames. His window is closing. He takes a step onto the bridge, and it creaks, but holds.

He looks back at Hung Wah.

Damn it.

He drags her out, his side, shoulder, and hands throbbing, and hauls her with him on his way out with difficulty. The flames are licking at his heels. He can see the door ahead, somewhere behind which Zuko surely is lying, in danger, and breathing in feels like an attempt to inhale pudding… his head is swimming… he squints at the door… 

The last thing he feels is a gust of air, and then something cool and drenching, as he falls forward, blacking out. 

 

He wakes up in a bed. 

For a minute or so he stares up at the ceiling-- red, carved, spider web in the bottom right corner-- while he tries to puzzle through, well, anything. His brain feels like it’s been scrambled and poured back into his head through his ear. He thinks-- the last thing he remembers is being face down while the throne room flamed behind him.

Dimly he becomes aware of the sound of breathing not his own. With an effort he turns his head. 

Zuko is sitting in a chair next to the bed, slumped over with his face in the blankets, asleep. He’s not wearing the Firelord’s hairpiece.

Sokka feels a wave of relief and fondness. Finding his arm above the covers, he moves his hand waveringly to touch Zuko’s arm. Sokka’s arm feels limp, as if he doesn’t have full control over it, as if it has recently fallen asleep. How long has he been out?

Zuko raises his head quickly, expression urgent, looking around. His eyes come to rest on Sokka’s face, and the hand on his arm, and his shoulders slowly lower as his expression softens. 

“You’re okay,” says Sokka. His voice comes out raspy.

“Yeah.” Zuko scoots the chair even closer, clasping Sokka’s hand tightly in both of his. “More or less.” His eyes are wide, searching Sokka’s face closely as if memorizing it. “The back wing of the palace burned down. But Aang and everyone came along just in time-- with Hung Wah in custody, we should get most of the Disciples rounded up pretty soon.”

“Good.” He swallows with difficulty, and Zuko pulls a hand away to grope for a jug of water on the bedside table. “I’m sorry about your throne and all.”

“I don’t care about that. At all.” He helps Sokka to take a sip of water. 

It’s the best thing he’s ever tasted. “How long was I out?” 

“A couple days,” says Zuko, taking his hand again once he has assured himself Sokka is done with the water. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Never better,” says Sokka. He laughs a little out of sheer relief, and the answering smile that appears on Zuko’s face is just the icing on the cake. “So what’s next?”

Zuko’s smile fades a little. “I don’t know.”

The future looms up again in Sokka’s mind, diminished now in menace but still baffling. Hung Wah and the Disciples are out, but how to make lasting change? They’ve yanked themselves out of the latest trap, but a net of limitations and contingencies built on secrets still surrounds them. 

“We could’ve died,” he says thoughtfully. 

Zuko frowns, squeezing his hand more tightly. “Yeah, but we didn’t.”

“How are…” He pauses, looking up at the ceiling once again. “I mean…” Silence reigns for a few moments. “Hung Wah thought that we were tearing down essential Fire Nation traditions by trying to institute reforms,” he says eventually. 

“Yeah?”

“But I think maybe-- we didn’t go far enough. And that maybe-- we should just kick that closet door down once and for all.”

He turns to look at Zuko, who appears to be regaining emotional health at a rapid rate, his spine straightening, his eyes brightening and widening. “Really? You’re ready?”

“Yep.” 

And finally-- it hits him like the dawning of the sun-- the anger. 

It sets his blood singing, driving away the anxiety like rodents before a bonfire, and it’s a _relief._ He wants to shout. He’s going to shout. From the rooftops. He is utterly outraged that this set of circumstances has been allowed to exist for this long. Who decided this was fair, huh? Imagine all the good they could have been doing without all this.

He can already tell this is going to be the most productive he’s been in years.

“And after that,” he continues, completely on a roll, “maybe once things have settled down a little, we could take a trip. To the Southern Water Tribe.” He needs to know if there’s any truth to what was in the letters they found, in the book-- and to be honest, it’d probably be good for him to see home for a while.

Zuko makes a face. “Would they want me there?”

“Sure they would,” says Sokka. “After they got to know you, at least. Honest.”

Zuko looks thoughtful, and opens his mouth to respond, but just then the door clatters open. 

“Sokka!” Katara rushes into the room, followed closely by Aang, Toph, and Suki, and appears to just barely restrain himself from throwing his arms around him. He twists his hands. “How’re you feeling?”

“Pretty good, considering. Thanks.” He knows that this is likely due to his healing abilities.

Katara gives him a worried smile. 

“Are they well enough to punch?” says Toph.

“Yes,” says Katara. “Gently.”

Toph swiftly deals out a blow each to first Zuko, and then Sokka.

“Ouch!” says Sokka, rubbing his arm. “Can’t you give a guy a break?”

“Why didn’t you call us earlier?” says Aang. “I would have come to help you!”

“No matter what,” says Suki with a meaningful look, raising her eyebrows. She puts a hand on Zuko’s shoulder.

As Zuko launches into an explanation of how he can’t call the Avatar every time he has a problem or he’ll look like a puppet, Sokka thinks that of course he knows exactly why. Because for a great deal of it, they would have had to explain Things that they, or at least he, Did Not Want to Explain. 

But maybe it’s simply time. 

“Okay, so, uh—guys—I’m bisexual.” Whoa, he did it. It was extremely easy. It was unbelievably fast. It was— he feels kind of sick, to be honest.

“I already knew,” Katara admits with a smile.

“Me too,” says Suki.

“Yeah,” says Toph.

“Wait, I’m confused,” says Aang, tilting his head. “Is this a big deal in the Water Tribe? Or in the Fire Nation? The Air Nomads thought it was pretty normal.”

“Of course they did,” says Sokka with a sigh, allowing his head to thump back against the pillow at last. “Okay, so you know that.”

“And we’re dating,” Zuko declares loudly.

“Yeah, I think we kind of guessed that as well,” says Toph with a shrug.

“And you’re okay with that?” says Zuko cautiously.

“Just so long as you don’t get all oogie around us.” 

“I don’t think there’s much danger of that,” protests Sokka, slightly offended.

“Yeah, we’ll see how long _that_ lasts,” says Toph smugly, poking their hands, still linked on the bedcovers. 

 

“Do you still want to do this?” he murmurs. 

“Yes. I absolutely do.”

“Hey.” Zuko drops into the seat next to him, scooting the chair closer so that they are pressed together along their sides. “If you don’t want to do this, just say it. It doesn’t matter. Just tell me.”

“No, no, I’m sure.” Sokka narrows his eyes. “It’s just that the whole ‘declaring yourself to a mostly homophobic country thing’ isn’t something I’ve got a lot of practice with. But don’t worry. We’ve been through worse.” And with that, he slams his head down onto the table. “We’ve been through worse,” he repeats, slightly muffled.

“What if we go for a walk?” he hears Zuko say. 

“A walk?”

“Yeah. To-- you know-- the same place we went last time.”

Sokka sits up properly, understanding what he means. “A walk.” He looks out at the room thoughtfully, and at the grand, intimidating balcony high up over the ground, where he will be looking down at a faceless sea of people in a short time.  
“Yeah, why not?”

“Firelord, where are you going?” calls Soongyu with slight exasperation as they leave the room. “I thought you had an announcement to make?”

“We do,” calls Zuko back. “We’re doing it on the ground.”

“That’s not exactly how you’re supposed to…” Soongyu pauses, her face wan, and Sokka sees in her hesitation that the revelations of the past few days and Hung Wah’s fall from grace have had their impact on her too, a preview of the huge restructuring that the entire Fire Nation government will be going through, again, in a short time. She takes a slow breath. “Well, okay.”

Aang, Katara, Toph, and Suki join up with them outside, and as they troop downstairs they gain a few more followers until they reach the bottom and exit the palace to stand directly in front of the crowd. Murmuring, it parts before them as they walk, and as they clear the opposite end of the courtyard and pass into the rest of the city, the crowd shifts to follow.

As they pass through the city, people start opening their doors and windows and coming out into the street to peer out at them, especially when they get into less well-off areas. The crowd chokes off as they enter narrower streets, and the going gets slower. As they turn the corner, they see it, for the first time: the door of the Jumping Dolphin Squid, open, in broad daylight. In front of it is a small, curious, wary-looking crowd. And at the front of that crowd…

Tao Zu stares at them as they stop in front of the tavern, without disguises, followed by the Avatar, the biggest _Here I am! Look at me!_ they could manage. “Li?” she says, lost, eyes flicking up to the royal hairpiece glinting in the sunlight. She looks slowly at Sokka. “Wang?” she says, sounding even more stunned.

Sokka spreads his arms in a kind of _Well, here you go_ sort of gesture. 

“Sorry,” says Zuko.

“I _knew_ it,” says Shizuki in delight.


End file.
